Felicia Kitler was arrested Tuesday in east Orange County during a Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation undercover operation into prescription-drug trafficking. She is accused of selling an agent morphine.

Felicia Kitler was arrested Tuesday in east Orange County during a Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation undercover operation into prescription-drug trafficking. She is accused of selling an agent morphine. (METROPOLITAN BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION)

Felicia Kitler could have been any suburban mom running errands as she drove into the crowded east Orange County shopping center in her minivan on a recent afternoon.

But she wasn't there to shop — she was there to sell her cancer-stricken mother's painkillers to an undercover detective, authorities said. Drug agents with the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation were watching and moved in as soon as the deal was made: 60 morphine pills in exchange for $480, agents said.

"We could do [stings like] this all day long," said MBI Director Phil Williams. "It's pitiful."

Lax state laws, an abundance of pain-management clinics and doctors willing to hand out addictive prescription drugs for cash have made Florida a destination for drug dealers and addicts.

And that is taking a toll on Central Florida law enforcers, who liken today's prescription-drug problem to that of the cocaine epidemic in the 1980s.

"I consider prescription-drug diversion and abuse to be the single greatest challenge we have in both public health and public safety," said Bruce Grant, director of the Florida Office of Drug Control.

According to a grand-jury report, from October 2008 to March 2009, 49 of the top 50 dispensing doctors of oxycodone in the nation were in Florida.

In Orange County, the number of cases with hydrocodone- and oxycodone-trafficking charges filed by prosecutors has increased more than 600 percent in the past five years, according to the State Attorney's Office. In 2005, prosecutors filed 18 such cases. In 2009, there were 136 such cases.

"It is becoming a significant issue for us here in Orange County," Sheriff Jerry Demings said.

MBI agents devote countless resources and time to investigating dealers, doctors and "pill mills" disguised as pain clinics. MBI's primary mission today is to try to stop the death rate from prescription-drug overdoses. In Orange County alone, 100 deaths last year involved misuse of prescription drugs. Statewide, prescription drugs killed 2,488 people in 2009 — or about seven deaths each day.

This summer, MBI and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced the arrests of more than 170 people as part of a multicounty investigation into prescription-drug trafficking. Doctors from Orlando and Winter Park were among those arrested, as were three generations of one local family.

Big business and "pillbillies"

Prescription-drug trafficking can be a lucrative business. Crime leaders known as "sponsors" recruit people to doctor-shop at pain clinics, where they pay cash for the visit. Sponsors pay to have the prescriptions filled and then take the pills and sell them.

The recruits are often paid with pills or a combination of drugs and cash.

When filling a doctor's prescription, one pill could cost $1. That pill could be sold on the streets of Central Florida for $10. And if that pill makes its way north, into Kentucky, Ohio or Pennsylvania, it could sell for up to $40, agents say.

Detectives have dubbed such traffickers "pillbillies."

Drug agents estimate some pill mills may bring in as much as $25,000 a day. If a doctor sees 100 patients a day at $250 each (paid in cash), he or she could make $1 million annually.

Investigating such cases — and making arrests in them — is incredibly complicated, officials say. Doctors legally can prescribe the medicine. And people can legally possess a prescription.

"To arrest someone for dealing crack cocaine or heroin or marijuana is a lot simpler than the investigations and the arrests of those involved in the illegal diversion of prescription drugs," Grant said. "It's a much more difficult task."

FDLE is working with drug task forces throughout Central Florida to help combat the problem, said Danny Banks, FDLE's chief of investigations for the Orlando region.

And Demings said the Sheriff's Office is developing a strategy with other state, local and federal agencies.

Deputies pay close attention to pain clinics that exhibit signs they may actually be pill mills — such as long lines, people hanging out in the parking lot, and a lot of cars with out-of-state license plates.

From January to August, Orange County deputies made 845 pharmaceutical-drug-related arrests. During the same period in 2007, they made 452 such arrests. And the number of pills seized by deputies is up 185 percent since 2007, Demings said.

In Volusia County, where drug agents recently arrested two doctors as part of a lengthy probe into pill mills, prescription drugs are the No. 1 narcotics problem, said Sheriff's Office spokesman Gary Davidson.

"The problem is just exploding," he said. "It's an absolute epidemic. It's killing people."

Deputies are seeing other repercussions of prescription- drug abuse, too: burglaries, robberies and home invasions in which people are looking for pills or want money to buy the drugs.

But investigators say even if all the pill mills were closed, there would still be a significant problem with prescription-drug abuse. That's because the No. 1 source of the drugs is family and friends — and because people assume the drugs are safe simply because they were prescribed by a doctor.

"They have an air of legitimacy around them. Unfortunately, because they are so great at doing what they do, they are also very subject to abuse," Grant said. "These drugs are just as dangerous as something that is traded in the back alley."